“Still, I—”
“Max.” Her tone was stern as she reached out and placed a hand on my chest. Her touch calmed a storm raging inside me. “I was happy you let me help. It felt good to be with you again, even if your breath did smell like tequila.”
The smile that curled her lips and lit up her eyes gave me permission to breathe easier. Janie always had a way about her that helped me relax.
Her hand fell from my chest and she turned back to the pancakes. “Stop distracting me,” she said. “I don’t want to burn these.”
“How can I help?”
Within another five or ten minutes, we found ourselves sitting at the table in my kitchen nook pouring maple syrup over our stacks of pancakes. Janie smothered hers with butter, as she always used to do, and helped herself to warmed-up raspberries she’d found in my fridge and popped in the microwave. They stained the inside of her lips a magnificent shade of red.
The first few bites were hard to get down because of my rolling stomach from all the liquor, but once I was halfway through the meal, the nausea abated.
I watched Janie eat. Neither of us spoke as we made our way through the meal.
When she was done, she set her utensils down and sipped her coffee while she gazed out the kitchen windows at the sunny morning.
“Did I scare you off last night?” I asked.
Her eyes slid to me. “Scare me off?”
I nodded. “I think I asked for too much when I can’t give you what you deserve. I said a lot of things last night, things that I meant, but I can’t do anything about them yet. I need to figure things out with Sienna before we take any more steps.”
Janie arched an eyebrow and set her coffee mug down. “Steps?”
I could hear the hope in her voice. It matched the frequency in my heart.
“I want to be with you, Janie,” I said. I’d told her the truth last night and saw no reason to play it close to the vest this morning. “I’ve always wanted to be with you and I’ve regretted losing you every day since we broke up. But I can’t act on it now. Sienna deserves a conversation. She and I need to work out what our futures look like. How we’re going to parent. How we’re going to support each other and be a united front despite not being together. It’s complicated, I know, and it might take some time to work through it all, but if you’re willing to wait for me—”
“I am,” she said without hesitation or doubt. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
She pushed up from her chair. I watched as she moved around to my side of the table to stand behind my chair. She rested her hands on my shoulders.
“Can’t we pretend for a little while longer that it’s just us?” she asked softly.
I tilted my head back to peer up at her. Janie smiled down at me and lifted her hands from my shoulders to hold my face in her hands. She leaned over and pressed a delicate, flirty kiss to my lips. She tasted like syrup and butter.
“You don’t want to be with Sienna,” she said. “You don’t owe her anything other than support. And you can support her while I support you.” Her kisses wandered across my jaw to my ear. She pinched it between her teeth, gently at first, nothing but a nip and a tease, and harder after, a sharp sting that made me gasp. She smiled against my neck and continued kissing. “Let me make you feel good, Max.”
She had me wrapped around her finger and she knew it. There was no way I could say no to her, not with her lips wandering down my neck or her fingers running over my shoulders and into the neckline of my shirt. Her touch ran down over my chest and back up.
“Please?” she cooed.
“You’re dangerous, woman.”
She giggled softly. “Is that a yes?”
I gripped her wrists. Her kisses on my neck stilled as she waited for my answer.
I stood up, and Janie giggled as I turned and swept her up in my arms. She draped her arms around my neck as I carried her into the living room and threw her down on the sofa, where she promptly slid off the edge and went to a crouch in front of me. She spread her legs and balanced on the balls of her feet while she reached out and yanked my sweatpants down in a quick flourish. They settled around my knees and she smiled up at me as she freed me from my boxers.
I was already hard for her. She looked so good in nothing but my T-shirt that hovered across her upper thighs.
Janie let out a satisfied and eager sound that was something between a moan and a sigh as she leaned in close and teased my cock with her tongue. The sensation made me flinch, and she rewarded me by taking me in her mouth with her tongue pressed against me. She guided me to the back of her throat and slowly worked me over, bouncing on the balls of her feet, holding my gaze, and reminding me of how good things used to be.
“Fuck,” I growled.
She moaned around my cock in her mouth.
I reached down and plunged my fingers into her hair. Janie responded by taking me in deeper. I held her there, relishing the feeling of her throat tightening around me before I let her up for air. She grinned, possessed by her lust, and pulled my shirt up over her hips. She wasn’t wearing any panties. My cock strained as she reached between her thighs and began rubbing her pussy while she sucked me off.
I clenched my teeth and let my head fall back.
This was the best sensation I’d had in ages. The world had felt like it was collapsing in on me these past couple of weeks but Janie’s mouth stole all that stress away. She melted around me and I looked back down at her as she pressed a finger inside herself.
That did it.
I pulled her up to her feet, spun her around, and pushed her forward. Janie arched her back and dropped low on the sofa for me, balancing on her forearms as she looked over her shoulder and watched as I realized I didn’t have a condom. Much to my surprise, she revealed one she’d been keeping in her sports bra.
I arched an eyebrow. “Someone’s prepared.”
“I wanted this to happen,” she admitted with plump lips and heavy eyes.
I stepped in close behind her and gave her ass a hard slap. She yelped, jerked upright, and pushed back against me until her glistening pussy grazed my cock.
“Fuck me,” she pleaded.
I ran a hand up the inside of her thigh and cupped her pussy. She sighed and moaned as I gave her one finger, followed by another, and felt her tighten around me. Janie had a body that made me forget my own name. She was tight and firm but also soft and luscious in all the right places. Her pussy was pink and swollen and dripping wet. I pressed in deeper until she gripped the sofa cushions and gasped.
That was the spot.
Janie moaned my name as I fucked her with my fingers. She lost her mind as I pressed against her G-spot and made her come so hard juices ran down the inside of her thighs. When she was good and ready, I tore open the condom, rolled it on, and gave her all of me.
Janie cried out in pleasure. Her back arched and I planted a hand against the dimples in her lower back, forcing her down and keeping her in place as I bucked furiously against her.
She collapsed forward but kept her ass in the air for me. Her cries were muffled by the sofa cushions until I took a fistful of her hair and forced her head up. From behind, I saw the corner of her lips curl in a needy smile.
I pulled her up against me and growled in her ear. “Good girl.”